vepres

Forms

veprēs m or f (genitive vepris); third declension^[1] Ancient grammarians also give the nominative singular as vepris or veper.^[2][3] The genitive plural is veprium, in Statius veprum.^[4][5] Lucretius treats it as feminine.^[2][4]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[6][1] Pokorny tentatively derives it from Proto-Indo-European *u̯erp- (“to turn, wind”), by dissimilation of an earlier *vreprēs, and compares Ancient Greek ῥῶπες (rhôpes, “twigs, brushwood”);^[7][8] Köbler gives that root with a question mark.^[8] An older comparison with Latvian vepris (“boar”), as if the bush were “bristly”, is rejected by Walde and by Pokorny.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded in Cato's work on agriculture, in the plural.^[8][2][4] A decree of the Senate quoted by Frontinus lists arbores, vites, vepres, sentes, trees, vines, briars and thorns.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It is usually plural, of thornbushes or a thorny thicket:^[9][2] Cicero describes a tomb fenced and overgrown all round with briars and thickets (vepribus et dumetis), and it occurs in Virgil and Horace.^[2][4] The singular is rare and mostly poetic, as in Ovid's hare hiding in a bramble (lepus vepre latens).^[10][3] Ammianus quotes the proverb inter vepres rosae nascuntur, “roses grow among thorns”.^[2] The Vulgate has the singular in Isaiah (veprem et spinam).^[2][3]

Medieval writers in Britain use it of thorn-bushes and brambles, also figuratively, and of a thorny branch or stem.^[11]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses the plural in his work on agriculture.^[8][2]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it as a feminine.^[2][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero describes a tomb overgrown with briars.^[2][8]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it in the Georgics.^[2][5][8]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus quotes the proverb of roses growing among thorns.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (usually in the plural) A thornbush, briar, bramble; a thorny thicket.^[9][2][5]
2. (Medieval Latin) A branch or stem of a thornbush.^[11]

Related words

• dūmus
• sentis
• veprēcula

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes it from its near-synonyms: dumi are bushes growing thickly together like a wilderness, sentes prickly, wounding bushes, and vepres combines both, thornbushes that turn the ground into a wilderness.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
5. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b Walde, Alois (1906), Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
7. ^ a b Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T. (1890), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: American Book Company
11. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
12. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper